I know that all of you this afternoon are wondering and asking
yourselves fundamental questions as to what I am going to talk about
under the umbrella of Contemporary
African Philosophy. I intend to talk about some philosophical
frameworks on which African people base
themselves in interpreting, organizing and rendering their lives
possible in our physical and spiritual universe.
My choice of this topic is accounted for by the fact that in every
culture, human beings have sets of principles by which their
experiences are ordered, rationally justified and are rendered
meaningful, ethical and valuable.
The entire focus of life depends on these models. In the like
manner, in African contemporary life today, life as a whole
continues to be explained, understood, reflected upon and rendered
meaningful by mindsets that are unique to the African cultures in
their various environments.
I hope that a brief analysis of some of these categories by which
Africans direct their lives and hope to survive in this modern
complex world, will reveal to us another way our mysterious universe
keeps unfolding itself. But before I embark on this main topic, I
would like to place before you a picture of the kind of Africa I am
talking about
and the trends of philosophy that determine the prevailing philosophy
in Africa be labeled "contemporary."

A modern contemporary African philosopher by the name,
Tsenay
Serequeberhan teaching African Philosophy at Hampshire College once
remarked that when he told students and the faculty there that he was teaching African Philosophy, they were shocked and raised eyebrows
by asking if such a thing like "African Philosophy" ever existed at all! There are certainly reasons for that surprise. One of them is the popular understanding of Africa as a Dark Continent where there are no roads, no schools, no governments and no civilization.
This is the Africa of journalists, merchants and tourist business people who want to promote their products.
Another reason why some people usually express wonder and doubt at the mention of the existence of African Philosophy is due to the image of Africa as delineated by some anthropologists, social scientists, political analysis's and historians with a slanted approach to reality.
Any person who reads the book entitled, The Savage Mind by
C. Levi-Strauss or V. Brelsford's work entitled, The Philosophy
of the Savage, or Levy Bruhl's Mental Functions among Lower Societies, or C. P. Groves work,
The Planting of Christianity in Africa,
will logically understand that the picture of Africa projected by
these scholars to the international community is tantamount to a
photograph of a person without a head and hands.

Many people who are not enlightened about Africa today in the
Western world still retain a mental picture of Africa where animals
are parading everywhere in jungles and people roaming about in deserts. It
is of course true that there are deserts, forests, nomadic peoples
like the Masai,
the Turkana, and the Karimojong
inhabiting semi-deserts and roaming about pasturing their cattle.
But is that the complete image of Africa, a continent comprised of
55 different countries?

The Africa I am talking about in this lecture is a vast continent
of 55 countries that have different forms of governments, economies,
systems of education, thousands of diverse cultures and modern
infrastructure. The image of Africa relevant to our topic is the
one where education,
especially philosophy, is rife. It is the Africa that has
Universities with full-fledged divisions of philosophy and religions. It is the Africa where the
philosophies of ancient to contemporary African thinkers are taught.
It is the same part of the globe where Curriculum
Boards have designed programs that critically study European, Asian
and African philosophies and religions. It is that part of our
universe where philosophical conferences like Africana Philosophy
Conference, Nigerian Philosophical Association Conference, Afro-Asian
Philosophy Conference, Dr. Anthony William Amo Conference, Conference
on Metaphysics as well as Theological Conferences have been
organized and do take place time and again. It is that zone of
the universe adhere professionally trained philosophers and
theologians like Odera
H. Oruka, Dismas Masolo, J. O. Sodipo, Peter Bodunrin , Prof.
Hountondji,
V. Y. Mudimbe,
John Mbiti, Wiredu, Idowu, et al have established Research Centers within University premises and are currently engaged in both philosophical and religious researches. When I talk about
African Contemporary Philosophy, it is the present picture of
Africa that I request you to bear in mind.

Before I embark on the models that constitute the current
African world-view,
it may be appropriate if we asked the question, "What is the
overall picture of contemporary philosophy in the African Continent
today?" Basically, there are four trends that can be regarded as the
core of African Contemporary Philosophy in our present times.
The first of these trends is Ethnophilosophy. While the second is
branded as Philosophic Sagacity, the third trend is
Nationalist-ideological Philosophy. Finally, there is what we
all know,
Professional Philosophy. What precisely do these philosophies mean?

The final unit of philosophy in Africa today is the
professional philosophy.
In the African context, professional philosophy consists in the
analysis and interpretation of reality in general. It
further consists of criticism and argument, which to them, are the
essential characteristics and conditions for any form of knowledge
to be judged
as philosophy. Philosophy to them is a universal discipline that
has the same meaning in
all cultures in spite of the fact that a particular philosopher maybe conditioned by cultural biases, method and the existential situation in his/her
society. According to this school represented by basically four
African philosophers,
Kwasi Wiredu,
Paulin Hountondji,
Oruka Odera and Peter Bodunrin, African philosophy is the philosophy
done by African
philosophers be it on the subject matter that is African
or alien. To these philosophers, African philosophy today is
predominantly a metaphilosophy dealing with the central theme of,
"What is philosophy?" and the corollary,
"What is
African philosophy?" Viewed in this context, it has some
limitations that have been, identified by Odera H. Oruka as lacking
personal subject matter, a prolonged history of debates and
literature to preserve and expand itself as well as a limited degree
of self-criticism.